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Time Travel Tuesday // Peruvian Artifacts

It’s Tues­day, and another install­ment of Time Travel Tues­day with Rebecca of Big Things! I’m really excited about the images that she is pre­sent­ing! Check out what she’s got to say about Peru­vian Arti­facts below!

Recently, I decided it would be worth­while to scan some of my books and share the images online. These are from a 1968 cat­a­log from an exhi­bi­tion at the Guggen­heim called Mas­ter­crafts­men of Ancient Peru. It was the largest exhi­bi­tion of Peru­vian arti­facts ever shown out­side of Peru and included over 700 objects from pri­vate and pub­lic collections.

The his­tory behind these objects fas­ci­nates me– not only the orig­i­nal maker, pur­pose, tech­nique and mate­ri­als, but also the prove­nance of each piece. How is it pos­si­ble that these frag­ile ceram­ics and tex­tiles have sur­vived thou­sands of years of envi­ron­men­tal stress, colo­nial pil­lag­ing, archae­o­log­i­cal exca­va­tions, and black mar­ket deal­ings to finally arrive in var­i­ous muse­ums or pri­vate col­lec­tions? What a long and mys­te­ri­ous journey!

Some of these tex­tiles, namely from the Para­cas Necrop­o­lis (c. 500–200 B.C.), are con­sid­ered to be some of the most intri­cate and impres­sive exam­ples of ancient embroi­dery and weav­ing. They were dis­cov­ered wrapped in lay­ers around bod­ies entombed in the ruins of a hill­side com­mu­nity. I love the rich col­ors and geo­met­ric qualities.

While research­ing the show a bit more, I also found this photo of art han­dlers unpack­ing some of the ceram­ics from the show! You can view the rest of the cat­a­logue online here.